


Mad Loon with a Blue Box

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Don't worry, F/M, He's only being shipped with the TARDIS, Hiddles Doctor, If Hiddles was the doctor, Multi, Tom Hiddleston!Doctor, the self-inserts are not shipped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor isn’t just a character on a BBC show - he’s real. And at the moment, he’s on Earth…going by the name Tom Hiddleston. A few young people (me and my friends, sigh) get swept up into his world and find themselves living the Doctor Who legend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad Loon with a Blue Box

**Author's Note:**

> TJ and Carrie work at a bookshop; one day they get a customer who surprises them. The next day he’s back - and so are some very, very dark forces.

I somehow missed both my alarms that morning - or maybe I half-woke and turned them off; I’m not sure. I’ve been known to not only talk in my sleep, but text, send emails, and carry on conversations. (I don’t drink, I swear. I just have a very active life while I’m asleep.) So at the bright and cheery hour of 11:30am, it was actually a text from one of my best friends that woke me up. 

 

_Carrie: TJ you’re late again. Told Katrice you’re sick. You’re welcome._

I groaned and dragged myself out of bed. I would have to find some way to thank Carrie later; she often covered for me when I flaked out.

 

My laptop was in my bed with me. That’s not so unusual for me; as usual, I’d been up till all hours on Tumblr. It’s a problem. But there were new Doctor Who promos, and of course Tom Hiddleston pictures, and…yeah, okay, still no excuse for still being awake scrolling at 4 in the morning, but, well, us fangirls do what we’ve gotta do.

I got dressed hurriedly and ran most of the way to the small books-music-and-DVDs store where Carrie and I worked. She met me at the door. 

Carrie was one of those girls who is just naturally skinny. She has probably just as many issues with it as I do with being heavy, and once I got over the initial thin-envy, we became friends. And no, we didn’t bond over moping over body types. We bonded because she saw my Tumblr over my shoulder and screamed “YOU’RE ONE OF US?! I - I CAN’T WITH THIS!”

 

Best friends ever since.

 

“Katrice is in a mood,” Carrie warned me.

 

I groaned. Our boss Katrice is great - a true bibilophile - but like all true intellectuals, she is extremely quirky. And, in her case, moody too. We got through the work day without any huge interpersonal issues, though, and closing time finally rolled around. Just as we were about to close up, a tall man in a camel-colored trenchcoat walked in.

 

I think I was able to speak solely because I’d worked in bookstores and libraries since I was sixteen, and the words were rote. “Can I help you find something?” I asked, not registering anything yet.

 

“Yes, do you carry Terry Pratchett?”

  
“Of course. It’s - ”

 

Bam. Finally it hit me. Blame my facial recognition issues or blame my general mad professor mindset for how long it took me to recognize the man, but I finally got it.

I did the only natural thing for one of my kind. I took a stumbling step back, made a sound like a mouse being trodden upon, and then ran like hell.

 

“ _Carrie!_ ” I screamed as I ran into the stockroom.

 

Carrie stared at me. “What the fuck? Why are you screaming?!”

 

“Tom.”

 

“Tom who?”

 

“ _Tom,_ ” I said emphatically. “There. Out there. Tom. TOM!”

 

Carrie regarded me carefully. “…Did you take your meds today?”

 

“Of course I took my - Jesus, Carrie, just look!”

 

She peered out into our store. Our guest was perusing some of the displays, occasionally looking around to see if there were any perhaps more mentally stable employees to talk to.

 

“Bloody fuck,” Carrie muttered. “You could have said Tom _Hiddleston._ ”

 

“I need to curl up in a corner and die,” I muttered.

 

“I’ll take care of it.”

 

Carrie has always been the tougher one between the two of us, and I was relieved when she strode right up to Tom, apologized for her co-worker’s behavior (I think I caught the words “stress” and “recent death in the family”), and helped him find what he was looking for. Me, I just slumped down amongst some boxes in the stockroom and chewed my fingernails.

 

Damn. I’d almost let them grow out. Something always happened around the one-millimeter mark and I’d get stressed and chew them off. It never failed.

 

Ten minutes later Carrie found me and dragged me to my feet. “TJ,” she said. “TJ. Come back. It. Is. Okay. He’s gone.”

 

“I still need to curl up in a corner and die,” I moaned. “I can’t believe I acted like such an _idiot._ ”

 

“Yeah, well, tell it to an Awkward Teen Things blog.”

 

“What did he buy?” I asked as we locked up.

 

Carrie smiled. “ _Good Omens,_ ” she said.

 

I sighed dreamily. “Considering that my life is over,” I said, “that’s pretty awesome.”

 

***

 

He was back the next day. But I don’t think he was looking for books.

 

Yeah. Pretty sure it wasn’t books.

 

I was at the register, doodling in a notebook, when someone ran into the store and dove behind the Romance stacks. On instinct, I pulled out my phone in my left hand and a canister of MACE in my right - we’ve never been robbed, but I know enough about London to be prepared.

 

Or, y’know, enough to be actively paranoid. Take your pick.

 

I glanced across the store at Carrie, who was straightening some books. While shelves blocked the intruder from my view, she could see him.

 

“…Tom?” she said hesitantly.

 

“Get _down!”_

 

I don’t know if Carrie listened right away, but I did. I spent the first six years of my life surviving the riots in Los Angeles. You tell me to get down, I get the fuck down.

Crouched on the floor, I edged to where I could see a little more. No one had followed our visitor (Tom?), but the lights were flickering.

_Shit. It’s not another installment of_ Avengers _or any of Tom’s other films. We’re in a fucking_ Supernatural _episode._

 

(You see how the fangirl mind translates every damn real-life stimulus into a reference to one of her fandoms?)

 

I could see a shadow in the doorway, but when I looked around, there was no one there to cast the shadow. It grew and grew, reaching across the room, heading straight for Carrie.

 

I was about to scream for her to run when suddenly Tom - yeah, that was Tom, all right - scrambled around from behind the shelves and aimed what looked like a pen or a laser pointer at one of our chandeliers. For a stupid moment, I thought _Don’t shoot the chandelier, it took us forever to find a matching set_. Panic does strange things to the mind; priorities don’t stay straight.

 

Whatever Tom was holding sent a blast of energy right to the fixture of the chandelier, and it came crashing down, sparks flying everywhere, over the shadow on the floor. It dissipated immediately, and I heard Carrie heave a sigh of relief.

We all kept our positions for a moment, and finally Tom spoke. “I…think we’re clear.”

 

I stood up on shaky legs and stared at him. “You wrecked our chandelier,” I said dumbly.

 

“Yes. So sorry about that. I promise I’ll pay for it.”

 

“It was an antique.”

 

“Oh dear.”

 

“Good thing it wasn’t wood,” Carrie said.

 

I gave her a look. _What the actual fuck?_

 

But Tom just smiled. “Now you’re catching on,” he said.

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, stepping out from behind the register. “What was all that? Why did you run into our shop like that? What was that shadow? And what is - ” I stared at the device in his hand.

_Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit._

 

I might not have been brought up on Doctor Who as much as others have, but I know a sonic screwdriver when I see one.

 

“She’s right,” he said, frowning at it. “Wouldn’t have done a bit of good on wood. I really need to make a setting for wood.”

 

“You’re…wait.” Carrie held up her hands. “It’s a _TV show._ Just a show. But that was…that was so _real!_ Are you filming something? Oh my God, are you the 12 th Doctor?”

 

Tom chuckled. “Not really. No cameras, nothing like that.” He looked from one of us to the other and shook his head. “This is going to be difficult to explain.”

 

“Try me,” I said, folding my arms. “Because that chandelier is going to be hard to explain to my boss.”

 

“TJ, let the goddamn chandelier go! Tom Hiddleston is here, he has a sonic screwdriver, and - and there was some weird paranormal thing that probably would have killed me.” She shook me lightly by the shoulders. “The chandelier. Is not. Important. Okay?”

 

I nodded. “Okay. But I still want to know what’s going on.”

 

Tom looked around and sighed. “All right. You grew up on Doctor Who, I presume,” he said to Carrie. Turning to me, he added: “But you might not have.”

 

I shook my head. “No, but I sort of follow it now.”

 

“Well, then. Here I am.” He spread his arms wide. “Mad man with a box.”

Silence.

 

Carrie snorted and burst out laughing. “Okay, so you’re practicing for the role,” she said. “I’ll vote for you, if that’s what it comes down to.”

 

“No, I mean…I really am…”

 

“Yes, you’re very good at it.”

 

“I mean - ”

 

I glanced at Carrie. “He’s the Doctor,” I said, awestruck.

 

“No he’s not! He’s Tom Hiddleston! You know? Actor, humanitarian, God of Mischief, loon?”

 

“No, I think he’s actually, like, _literally the Doctor,_ ” I said. I looked him up and down. He was wearing charcoal-gray slacks, a matching waistcoat, a white shirt buttoned up, and of course the camel-colored trenchcoat over all that. There was a scarf that looked like it might have been nabbed from Loki’s wardrobe from _Avengers_ , too. I spotted the chain of a pocket watch as well.

 

“You young people use that term ‘literally’ far too much, and not often well, but in that case, yes. I am… _literally_ the Doctor.”

 

“The Doctor isn’t real,” Carrie said - but her voice was hesitant and full of doubt. “It’s a character from a TV show. _A TV show._ Most recently portrayed by Matt Smith. TJ, don’t tell me you’re actually that confused about reality. Are you sure you took your - ”

 

“I took my damn meds! And I’m not confused!” I stamped my foot. “I will bet you - oh, hell, I’ll bet you 300 pounds and my Hiddleston DVD collection that there’s a blue box somewhere around here.” I glanced up at Tom - Tom? - whoever was standing in front of me. “There is, right?”

 

“Hidden in an alley, but yes, it’s around.”

 

“Bloody hell.”

 

“What are your names?” Tom(?) asked.

 

“Carrie Michel.” 

“TJ Harper.

 

“Carrie, TJ, lovely to meet you.”

 

Carrie suddenly grinned broadly. “Can we see the TARDIS?”

 

“Well, you’ve already seen too much…I don’t see why not.” He checked his pocket watch. I glanced over at it; it had too many dials, and it looked like the front was etched with something in circular Gallifreyan. He closed it quickly and headed for the door.

 

“We can’t leave the shop,” Carrie said to me in a hushed tone.

 

I shook my head. “Hel- _lo?_ The _Doctor?_ The TARDIS? Mad man with a blue box, Carrie! Come on, what could it hurt?”

 

“You don’t seem to recall all those episodes that really _did_ hurt,” she said. “And besides, it can’t be real.”

 

“Only one way to find out. …Or are you scared?”

 

Carrie rolled her eyes. “I’m not scared, and we’re not twelve, TJ. Calling me chicken won’t make me budge.”

 

“Chickenshit,” I said immediately.

 

She set her jaw.

 

“Let me get the keys,” she said.

 

***

 

Tom - I still couldn’t think of him as anything but Tom - led us down a few streets and into an alley. I thought for sure that this was the end of the prank, that he’d just turn around and yell “LOKI’D!” and then we’d find out where the hidden cameras were. But instead, he walked to the very end of the alley and put his hand against the wall.

 

“He’s gone off the deep end,” I murmured to Carrie. She just shook her head and shushed me.

 

A door opened - I can’t explain how; it wasn’t like the special effects on the show - just one moment it was a brick wall, and then it was a door. And still a wall. I squinted at it. “This is confusing my eyes,” Carrie said, echoing my thoughts.

 

“Sorry. Time Lord optical physics. It’ll be easier to look once we’re inside.”

 

“My dad’s an optical engineer,” I said dreamily. “He’d kill to see this.”

 

“This is cooler than the LHC,” Carrie said.

 

“The what?” Tom asked.

 

Naturally, being me, at the same moment I informed her loudly that “ _NOTHING_ is cooler than the LHC!”

 

And then I looked around, and immediately reconsidered.

 

It was…well, it was the TARDIS. I recognized bits and pieces that looked like the TV TARDIS’s various incarnations, but most of it was new. It was huge and looked very much like a spaceship, with panels and head-up projected displays everywhere.

 

“It really _is_ bigger on the inside,” I said, awed.

 

“I can’t…Oh my God…” Carrie was wandering around, studying every little device she could find. Our host just looked stood there, watching our expressions, clearly very proud.

 

“Welcome,” said the Doctor.

*******

 

Carrie explored the TARDIS for what felt like hours - but I realized we were probably outside of time at the moment. I checked my watch and the hands were spinning lazily; they looked inebriated. The Doctor assured me that it was normal.

 

While Carrie explored, we followed her, with the Doctor hovering nervously and warning her not to touch things, and me asking my endless questions. Call me a stereotypical rude American, but damnit, I had questions.

 

“Why do you look like Tom Hiddleston?”

 

“Well, I _am_ Tom Hiddleston. I came here a little over fifteen years ago, and it took a few years to build up a fake background, but I managed.”

“So…wait. So all the films you’ve done, all the acting…you were the Doctor all along?”

“Yes.”

 

“Why? Aren’t you supposed to be flying around space and time, having adventures?”

 

A pensive, slightly sad look crossed his face. “I wanted a little break from adventures,” he said softly. “I’ve always been rather fond of Earth and I thought I’d take a little holiday here.”

 

“So…it’s all real?”

 

“Not the specific stories you’ve seen on the telly, but yes, the general ideas are real.”

 

Carrie looked up sharply. “Weeping Angels? The Silence? Daleks? Is all that real too?”

 

The Doctor nodded seriously. “Quite real, I’m afraid.”

 

I shuddered. “Carrie, don’t you even _talk_ about Weeping Angels.”

 

What? They’re fucking creepy. Everything has something they can’t stand. For me, it’s Weeping Angels. …And frogs. Fucking frogs. Hate the little fuckers.

 

“But what was the thing in the bookshop?” Carrie furrowed her brows, thinking. “I don’t recognize that from any episodes.”

 

“Etherkin,” the Doctor said.

 

“Ether what?”

 

“They’re…bad.” He shook his head. “I’ve been after that one for months. He tails me, then I tail him…Etherkin are bad news, my dears. We were all lucky.”

 

“So what are we waiting for?” I cracked my neck, making the others wince. “Let’s go kick some shadow-monster ass.”

 

“TJ, that’s idiotic,” Carrie groaned. “You don’t know the first thing about fighting aliens. …You’ve still only seen Nine, Ten, and Eleven!”

 

“Hey, I was brought up on Star Trek! I know a thing or two! We know about fighting evil aliens too! Species 8492?”

 

We squared off for what I’m sure would have been yet another epic British vs. American Battle of the Sci-Fi Fandoms, but the Doctor stepped between us. “Neither of you knows enough to fight an etherkin,” he said. “But…I could use your help.”

 

“What for?” Carrie asked cautiously.

 

“Actually, her specifically.” He nodded to me.

 

“…Me?”

 

He blew out a long breath and ran a hand through his curly hair. “Etherkin like people who are already, er…anxious,” he said.

 

“Oh, good. If they like anxious, they’ll fucking love a full-on psycho,” I groaned.

 

“You’re not a psycho,” they both said at the same time.

 

The Doctor continued. “Etherkin feed on fear. And they’ll scare you as much as they can - to get more of your fear. I’m normally against using people as bait, but I assure you, we wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

 

I stared at him. “What happens if it gets me?”

 

He bit his lip. “Believe it or not, people _can_ be ‘scared to death,’” he said. “That’s what an etherkin does.”

 

“This is stupid,” Carrie said flatly. “You are not using TJ to lure out that thing.”

 

“Let me show you something,” the Doctor said.

 

He led us to a file cabinet and pulled out several newspapers, each with an article circled. Each one detailed mysterious deaths - heart attacks suffered by perfectly healthy young people. Most were women, and several of the articles mentioned mental health issues.

 

“How many are there?” Carrie asked, her voice hollow.

 

“Too many. I haven’t got all of them, I’m sure.” The Doctor pointed to the dates. “One every two weeks for the past fourteen months.”

 

“That’s almost thirty girls,” I murmured.

 

“What makes you think it wouldn’t _get_ TJ?” Carrie asked warily.

 

“We’d be standing by,” the Doctor said, “with these.” He held out two ordinary torches.

 

“…Torches? Really?”

 

“Etherkin can’t stand light. Clever, huh?” He was grinning smugly, as if he’d come up with something truly brilliant.

 

 “It’s like when we were kids,” I said. “In our rooms at night. We thought if we kept the lights on, if we shone a torch under the bed…the monsters wouldn’t get us.”

 

“Earthlings used to know about etherkin,” the Doctor said. “That’s where that tradition comes from. So we’ll immobilize it with the torches…” He pulled out something that looked like an egg whisk with LED lights on it, and fitted it to the sonic screwdriver. “And this is what we’ll use to kill it.”

 

“…Is that an egg whisk?”

 

He looked at me blankly. “It was the perfect conductor. I made it myself.”

 

“Okay then.”

 

Carrie and I stared at each other. “Thirty girls…” Carrie shook her head. “If you’re not comfortable with this - ”

 

“No. Let’s do it,” I said.

 

***

 

The Doctor told us that the etherkin was probably trailing us anyway, which wasn’t comforting, but he seemed confident that we’d get it. The plan seemed to be to place me in a scary situation and…well, let me sit there and get scared, and wait for the etherkin to show up.

 

We considered a graveyard, but when I pointed out that I’d been a goth kid and had hung out in more graveyards than I could count and felt very comfortable there, we discarded the idea. They told me to own up to my fears, and I reluctantly admitted most of them.

 

I left out the thing about frogs. I really hate frogs more than anything else, but it’s just too weird to admit to anyone.

 

“Crowds, high places, car crashes…” Carrie shook her head. “I don’t know how any of those would work. Can’t have crowds around with the etherkin if we’re going to attack it, I don’t want to risk standing on top of a building, and damn if I’m going to orchestrate a car crash.”

 

“Anything else, TJ?” the Doctor prompted.

 

I paused. “Dark alleys,” I said. “Being alone in a rough place.”

 

“That could be risky,” Carrie said.

 

“Yes, but we’d be right around the corner.” The Doctor brought up a map of the immediate area on one of the computer screens. “Carrie, you know the place better; where would you recommend?”

 

We wound up heading to a really nasty area, and I was uncomfortable the moment we turned onto that street. Carrie and the Doctor walked me to the alley they’d chosen, and I sat down in the back of it with my gray trenchcoat wrapped around me, a cigarette in my hands. They peeked around the corner and I gave them a thumbs-up.

 

And then the long wait.

 

I just sat there, getting more uncomfortable by the moment. The skies were darkening and I was starting to get anxious. I’d only been down this street once before, and that was when I was lost. It wasn’t the kind of place I wanted to be - least of all alone, when the sun was on its way down.

 

A shiver went down my spine and I looked around. I was on my third cigarette and something didn’t feel right.

 

And then I saw it.

 

There was nothing casting the shadow, but it was a humanoid shape - distorted, yes, like shadows often are, but distinctly humanoid. On instinct, I pushed myself back against the wall, eyes widening. My heart rate picked up, along with my respiration, and I was sure I could feel the adrenalin starting to pump into my bloodstream.

_They feed on fear._

 

It got closer and closer, spreading outwards, filling most of the alleyway. I was frozen there, trying to scream. “Car…CARRIE! Doctor! It’s here!”

 

Nothing.

 

Had they left? Had they fallen asleep? Had the etherkin already killed them? Now I was feeling _true_ panic. I was dizzy and numb and faint all at once. And as I watched the shadow spreading towards me, the darkness took form, rising upwards. I had a brief glimpse of glowing golden eyes and a gaping mouth full of teeth, all dripping blackness, and then -

 

“ _TJ!_ ”

 

Torches shone down the alley, and inches from my face, the etherkin howled and curled back in on itself. Carrie was running down the alley, past the shifting, shrinking shadow, keeping her torch trained on it all the while. And there was the Doctor, raising the sonic screwdriver and the egg-whisk contraption, pressing a button.

 

Light billowed out from the tip of the egg whisk, all the LEDs going off at once, and the etherkin screamed again, folded in on itself, and literally burned in the air. I can’t describe the sight of darkness burning, but it was dramatic to say the least.

 

The Doctor watched the etherkin until the last scrap of shadow had burnt away, and then ran down the alley to me. “You all right?” he asked, crouching before me.

 

“S-scared,” I muttered. “Fucking hell. You fight things like that often?”

 

He offered a wry smile. “Oh, well, from time to time.”

 

“Is it dead? Really dead?” Carrie asked.

 

“It is quite dead, I’m sure.” The Doctor examined the sonic screwdriver and removed the egg whisk attachment, which seemed to have burnt itself out as badly as it did the etherkin - it was melted in places, and all of the LEDs had burnt out. “Pity. It was a nice egg whisk.”

 

We all burst out laughing at that. Then we walked back to the TARDIS, me leaning on both of them, still weak-kneed with leftover fear and relief. The Doctor went to “check on some of the wibbly-wobbly bits,” and Carrie and I were left in the entryway.

 

“Are we gonna go with him?” Carrie asked. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know you’re…a little different, and things can be difficult.”

 

I shook my head. “Carrie, how many times have we daydreamed about this?”

“Meeting Tom Hiddleston or meeting the Doctor?”

 

“…Either. Both. Both is good.” I smiled. “I’m _not_ turning this down. Besides…look at him.”

 

We both looked. The Doctor was petting one of the TARDIS’s consoles, murmuring “good old girl…thanks for holding up through all this…no, of course I love you best…they’re sweet, but you’re the one…”

 

Carrie chuckled. “Adorable.”

 

“Mad man with a blue box,” I said. “I’m in if you are.”

 

She paused, considering this seriously.

 

“I was kind of sick of that job anyway,” she said with a shrug. “I’m in.”

 

\--TBC--

**Author's Note:**

> PS - Hope this is ok; I haven’t watched any Who in an embarrassingly long time. And yes, I ship the Doctor with the TARDIS. I’ll get to that in a few episodes. More characters, more adventures, and more Tom!Doctor to come! …AND STRANGE HATS!!


End file.
